Under His Command (Six-Alarm Sexy) (7 page)

Pushing off the bed, he grabbed a beer from the mini-bar and popped it open. It wasn’t Redhook, and he hated drinking from a can, but he certainly wasn’t going to get drunk on those frou-frou drinks they served in coconuts with umbrellas. He chugged the can of watery-tasting shit and popped open a second one before dropping onto the couch.

The curtains shifted and for a moment he thought she’d come back, but it was only a breeze bringing in the salty ocean air. Where had Rickie gone? They were on their honeymoon, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and they were fighting instead of having blow-your-mind sex. It just wasn’t right. Had she expected more romance? Had he come on too strong, too soon?

He took another long swig of his beer. Yeah, he probably should have taken Rickie out for a nice dinner and some dancing before bringing her back to the cottage for some mattress mambo. But as soon as their plane had landed, all he’d been able to think about was getting his hands on her lush ass, and sinking his cock into her hot pussy—

Fuck!

Just the thought of taking her made him hard as a damn fire axe. Maybe if he took the edge off, he’d have better control of himself, wouldn’t be so damn desperate. Through his cotton shorts, he wrapped his hand around his hard-on and pushed back. He groaned and a shudder shook his body. It felt good. But it wasn’t what he wanted.

With a snort of disgust, he let go and raised the can of beer to his forehead. If he could get sex off his mind, he might be able to figure out a way to talk to Rickie. His eyes went to the curtain. Had she expected him to go after her? Shit. One more mark against him.

He stood and started to pace the room, pausing to toe off his sandals. The cool wood felt like heaven on his bare feet. This situation was making him crazy. Even as a teenage boy, he’d never felt this insecure with a female. He rubbed the back of his neck, stiff with tension. Dani was right—he’d changed. Being with Rickie had changed him, and not for the better. The more she’d pushed him away, the more he’d let her. He’d gone against every instinct he had, just to try to make her happy. Some Dom he was.

He’d done this to himself, and it was up to him to find a fix. But introspection had never been his forte, and the idea of visiting the fire-service shrink made him nauseated. If word got out… He didn’t even want to think about what would happen.

But there was someone else, someone who knew him better than he knew himself. Reaching back, he fished his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hey, Mom,” he said when she answered on the second ring.

“Jamie?” She sounded confused, surprised. He hadn’t expected to be calling his mother during the first hours of his honeymoon either.

“Just wanted you to know we arrived safely. And to check on Chloe.”

“Ah. Did Erica ask you to call? Is she regretting leaving Chloe with us?”

“Not at all. In fact, she went for a walk on the beach.”

Silence.

“Mom?” He pulled the phone away from his ear to check if they were still connected. They were. “You there?”

“First, Chloe’s fine, and she’s sleeping. It
is
past nine here.”

Shit. His mind was so wrapped up in the fight with Rickie, he’d completely forgotten about the time difference. He glanced at his watch, which he’d set to local time in the plane. Six fifteen. In an hour or so the sun would set. If Rickie wasn’t back by then, he’d go searching for her. “That’s—” he started.

“And second,” she said, cutting him off. “Why aren’t you on the beach with her?”

“She… uh….” Like an idiot, he’d walked right into that one. His mother was far too perceptive—and inquisitive—to let his comment slide.

“Something’s wrong. I know it.”

He started to pace again, and finished off his beer while he did mental gymnastics trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t set off her bullshit detector. “Nothing’s wrong, Mom.”
Yeah, that should do it, dickhead
.

His mother’s amusement came through loud and clear. “You’ve always been too direct to be a good liar, son. But thanks for the entertainment. Now tell me what’s going on.”

He pushed the curtain aside and secured it with the tasseled rope. Watching the huge waves rolling in, he felt small, petty even. Why couldn’t he and Rickie just talk? After taking a deep breath, he pushed the truth out. “We had a fight.”

“Already?”

His chuckle sounded bitter, harsh. So unlike him. “Must be some kind of record, huh? I should call the folks at Guinness. Get into their next book.”

“Oh, Jamie. I know how much you want things to work out with Erica. What happened?”

Rubbing the line of pain that reached from his gut to his throat, he stepped out onto the lanai. “That’s just it, Mom. I don’t know. I do something. I think she hates it, so I do something else. She gets mad. I do the first thing again, thinking she’ll be happy. But no. She’s mad. Again.”

“I’m not sure I want to know the specifics of what you’re talking about.” He could hear the affection and humor in her voice. Caroline Caldwell deserved a nomination to sainthood for having raised four boys and an incredibly contrary girl.

“Have I changed much since meeting Rickie?”

Empty air filled the line again.

He sat on the foot of one of the padded chaise longue. “It’s okay to tell me. I did ask.”

She sighed. “You’ve matured a great deal. You’ve accepted your responsibilities and settled down. Those are all good things.”

“Sure, but by your tone, there’s more. Like maybe not all the changes are good ones.”

“They aren’t.”

“Talk to me, Mom. I’m a desperate man.”

“And right there is the problem, isn’t it?”

Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he raked his free hand through his hair, as a headache began to pound his brain like a boxer in the ring. Everyone seemed to be talking in tongues. Maybe he was having an aneurysm. “I want Rickie to be happy. That’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s exactly what a husband should want. But why are you so desperate for her happiness, even at the cost of your own?”

“Because I love her.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“There really isn’t. I love my wife. I want her to be happy. End of story.”

“Jamie. Lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself. There’s more to it. Think hard.”

“Because I owe her.” His voice sounded strangled.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” His mother would have made a great psychiatrist. Or military interrogator. “Why do you owe her?” she asked.

His mouth slammed shut and his molars ground together. It would take the Jaws of Life to free the words trapped in his throat.

Seeming to grasp his current inability to speak, she began to fill the silence. “I never mentioned this to you before, even during the divorce, because I didn’t think you wanted to know. Perhaps you weren’t ready to admit it to yourself. But you know what, Jamie? I think you’re ready now, so I’m just going to say my piece. If you want to make things work with Erica—and I believe you do—you need to understand and acknowledge your role in what’s happened. So tell me—what do you owe her?”

“Everything!” he blurted. “Christ, Mom. I ruined the girl’s life.” His volume had risen to a shout. He shot a furtive glance at the area surrounding the cottage, then headed inside. No need to let all of Oahu in on his problems.

“Does she feel the same?”

“Yes.” Had they actually ever discussed it? There’d been so much going on at the time, he wasn’t sure. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know.”

“In the five years you’ve been together, you’ve never talked about how getting pregnant impacted her life? So you actually don’t know anything.”

“She had plans, Mom. She was going to be a lawyer. The pregnancy changed all of that. But my life? It continued pretty much according to schedule.”

“And you feel guilty about that.”

“I’m not a sociopath. Of course, I do.”

“Enough to mold yourself into the man you think she wants?”

He thought about that for a moment, then shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “No. Into the man she deserved.” His mother’s sigh hit his heart like a battering ram. “Whatever you’re thinking, I’m not pussy-whipped.”

“I never said you were, dear.”

If defending yourself against your own accusations meant anything, he was so fucking pussy-whipped. And he’d done it all to himself.
Stupid bastard
. “How the hell am I supposed to fix this?”

“Well, you start by introducing yourself to her. Let her get to know the man you really are.”

“I’m not sure I know who that is anymore.”

“This might sound harsh, but stop judging yourself by Erica’s standards. Because you obviously have no idea what she’s thinking or what she wants. Do what feels right and good to
you
. If she likes it or she doesn’t, she’ll tell you. Don’t assume anything.”

He leaned his head against the wall and groaned. “That’s not going to help. Even when I ask her, I don’t understand the answer. The words are all English, but they don’t make any damn sense.”

Her laughter eased some of the pain in his head, some of the ache in his chest. “Erica is a good woman. Listen to what she doesn’t say and you’ll be just fine.”

Christ. He’d gone and jinxed himself. Why were women so fucking complicated?

Erica approached the cottage from the side. As she rounded the corner and the lanai came into view, she froze. Her heart gave a hard thump, then contracted painfully.

Dressed in black shorts and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt, Jamie sat at one of the deck chairs, a sight to behold. The setting sun sent rays dancing over his golden skin, creating caramel highlights in his mahogany-colored hair. Like a fine wine, her husband had only improved with the passing years. Age and hard physical work had enhanced the edginess in his features: the cut jawline and the sharp blade of his aristocratic nose, a reminder of his British ancestry. The whiteness of his shirt against his tanned skin emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his chest muscles.

Her gaze flowed down to his flat stomach and ridged abs. Abs that begged to be licked. She swallowed and ran her tongue over her dry lips.

Legs stretched out before him, he lounged in the deck chair. The position put on display his powerful thighs and calves, the result of vigorous exercise and innumerable trips up and down the practice tower.

With reluctance, she brought her gaze back up to his face. Dark sunglasses denied her his amazing Caldwell blue eyes, but saved her from his piercing—no doubt, accusing—glare.

Steeling her resolve, she stepped up onto the lanai. Jamie’s only acknowledgement of her arrival was a slight tightening of his lips. She pulled out a chair across from him and sat on the edge, her hands cradled in her lap. She hadn’t been this nervous around him since that day she’d sought him out, pregnant and alone. He’d had all the power. Had he chosen, he could have turned her away. Many men in his position would have.

This time, things were different. This time, she had all the power. But only if she grabbed control of the conversation. Inhaling deeply, she filled her lungs to capacity, before slowly releasing her breath. Jamie continued to stare out at the ocean, ignoring her. “Jamie, can we talk?” Okay, not quite the power play she’d envisioned. She tried again. “I mean, we
need
to talk.” There that was better.

He slowly turned to her, the tinted lenses making it impossible for her to read his mood. On the other hand, the stiffness of his posture and the turning in of his lips told her plenty.

She pushed some more. “We need to talk about what just happened. About what happened on our reunion night.”

His face as unmoving as a statue, he made a tiny “go-ahead” gesture with his hand, as if she weren’t worth the effort of movement or conversation.

She huffed in annoyance. “I can’t do this alone.”

“No?” His brow arched over the rim of his glasses and his mouth curved into a smirk. “You’ve proven you’re quite good at doing things alone.”

Erica closed her eyes. She deserved that dig. Jamie was tough, but she’d pushed him, hurt him, over and over this past year. But despite everything, he’d only shown his pain to her twice—the night of the earthquake and right now. “I’ve handled a lot of things very badly where you’re concerned, Jamie. I’m sorry about that. But it doesn’t change the fact that we have serious problems. Problems that have to be resolved before we can move forward.” She flicked a glance at him. He was watching the water, his manner dispassionate, disinterested. It made her blood pressure rise. “Problems that aren’t all mine,” she finished, her tone sharp.

“Ah, so this is going to be a what’s-wrong-with-Jamie lecture. No thanks.”

She threw her hands in the air. “That’s not it at all. I just want us to talk,
really
talk. No judgment, no recriminations. Let’s lay everything on the table so we can figure out how we can fix”—she waved her hand between them—“us. And this isn’t just about what happened in there. The sex is just a symptom, a casualty, of the fact that we can’t seem to communicate anymore. If we ever even did.”